Zero and Kira: Philosophies of the Demon and the God
by Draconias
Summary: Two figures, one a Demon, the other a God, who changed their worlds forever and yet still died simple humans, trying to fulfill a desperate dream. [My own little psychoanalysis of two incredible and genius characters. Light Yagami and Lelouch vi Britannia]


**Zero and Kira: Philosophies of the Demon and the God**

**(Note: This story is not meant to settle the feud between those who believe that Lelouch is better than Light or vice versa. This is simply a One-Shot to get the juices flowing in my brain again so I can find my muse that basically went on break while I was taking my college classes this semester. Besides, it seemed like it'd be interesting to note both the similarities and differences in philosophy between two characters of such high intellect that ended up creating alter egos that changed their worlds. Anyway, on with my hopefully accurate, psychoanalyzation of two genius anime characters. I will be posting this story in both the Code Geass section and the Death Note section so that I can get both fandoms aware of my thoughts on both stories.)**

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><p>Lelouch, also known as Zero, is a former Prince of an Empire that spans one-third of the planet and possesses all the pride, charisma, and arrogance that comes with such a background. After his mother was assassinated by an unknown (to him) assailant, and his sister, Nunnally, crippled and blinded by the trauma of witnessing the assassination, Lelouch began his path to bring justice for the murder of his mother. However, his Father, the Emperor, cast both him and his recently crippled sister aside, using them as political hostages in negotiations with Japan for increased access to their Sakuradite, a material that is extremely necessary for the creation of technology all throughout the world. Eventually, within that same year, negotiations broke down and the Emperor declared war on Japan, completely disregarding his two children that were being held as hostages.<p>

After having to survive the war, Lelouch faked his and Nunnally's deaths, while having the two of them live with political allies of their mother who had fallen from grace. Eventually, due to a chance circumstance, he obtains the power of Geass and used both his intellect and his new power to begin his war against his homeland, both to find out about the truth behind his mother's assassination and to create a gentler world for his beloved little sister. As Zero, he led a resistance movement that later evolved into a substantially powerful military force over the course of the first season, all the while having many of his plans foiled by his best friend, who had been attempting to change things from working within an established system instead of trying to destroy the system to replace it, believing it would cost fewer lives. After a meeting with his second most precious sister, he made a joke that, thanks to his power going out of control, ended up being taken literally. That order, "Kill all the Japanese", ended up making the sister he loved more than any of his other family save Nunnally into a symbol of hatred for the people whose freedom he vowed to grant. He killed his half-sister, who would not stop her genocidal rampage because his order would compel her to fulfill it until it was completed, and used the incident to spark the beginning of his full war against his former homeland. He felt great guilt for killing the sister he loved, but rationalized it with his Ends over Means philosophy that he followed while leading the Black Knights. Unfortunately, his best friend, who had been in love with his half-sister, captured him and brought him before his father, which resulted in him losing his memories for an entire year.

Eventually he regained his memories and went on to become Zero once again, this time acting much more ruthlessly in order to accomplish his goals. However, once Nunnally became part of the opposition he faced, he reworked his plans to avoid confronting her. His charisma and intellect ended up gaining him many allies and he created an alliance of the nations that oppose his former homeland to combat their military force. However, after an incident that caused him to believe Nunnally was dead, he _shatters_. What little restraint and sanity he had left after everything he had gone through was shredded and he almost allowed himself to be killed after being betrayed by his allies before he is saved by his fake little brother that had infiltrated his life during his year without memories. His little brother ended up dying due to overexerting himself and Lelouch resolved to not waste the life given to him and goes to confront his father, where he learns the truth about everything that caused him to become Zero alongside his best friend who had returned to his side.

The two of them create a plan, a plan that required them to conquer the world, something that is accomplished, at least partly, extremely quickly due to Lelouch abandoning any restraint he held for not using his power. However, the cause of his former armed forces betrayal of him, his older brother, revealed that he had secretly kept Nunnally alive and manipulated her against Lelouch. This caused Lelouch great distress before his best friend snapped him out of it and reminds him that they've gone too far to stop with their plan. They eventually succeed with conquering the world, but they have to fake Lelouch's best friend's death in order to go into the final phase of their plan. Eventually, Lelouch becomes the most hated figure in history, called the Demon Emperor, and prepares to execute all of his former allies for betraying him. However, he is stopped from doing so by his best friend, dressed to look like his former alter ego Zero, and he is then stabbed by his best friend in the chest and he falls down to die near his sister who realizes what he had planned thanks to her empathic abilities that work when she touches a persons' hands. As a result of Lelouch's death, the entire world is united and peace is achieved, even if it was somewhat difficult to maintain. His entire goal, of creating a gentler world for his beloved little sister, was completed even though it meant his death. Thus, the philosophy of the Demon can be called, "Victory at any cost." As long as his goal was completed, Lelouch felt no hesitation in giving up his own life to accomplish it if that was what it took.

Light Yagami, also known as Kira, is a simple student who ends up finding a notebook called a "Death Note" after seeing it fall out of the sky by chance. Upon testing its validity, he becomes sickened that he had taken two human lives, regardless of the fact that one was a man holding a preschool hostage and the second was a rapist about to assault a woman in plain sight. Despite having a normal family and a normal life, at least as normal as can be with a father who is a police officer, Light is burdened by the desire, _the need_, to be absolutely perfect. It's practically a psychosis, in that every single thing he does must be perfect in his eyes or make him appear perfect to other people. After killing two people, having known all along that murder is evil, and that he just committed an evil act, he desperately seeks to regain his status of perfection that he lost by committing evil. Ultimately, his psyche ends up coming to the conclusion that, in order to become perfect again, he must become God. Because what could be more perfect than that. Because if God takes a life, it is always for righteous and _perfect_ reasons. He ultimately decides to take on the role God of Judgment in order to create a perfect world without crime.

This decision ultimately leads to conflict with an intellect that is his equal, the World's Greatest Detective, known only as L. L is a detective that has solved every case he ever took and is the only person on the planet who is able to command the world's police forces at any time. L becomes interested in Kira, as the people of the world decide to call Light since no one is aware of his regular identity, after seeing him kill a decoy that had pretended to be L. A criminal named Lind L. Tailor posed as L and declared Kira to be evil, setting off Light's temper and causing him to immediately kill the imposter. After Tailor dies of a heart attack, the real L, while having his alias depicted on the screen in an odd font in place of his face, declares that Kira had fallen into his trap and began a war against Kira. Through a series of increasingly complicated plans put into action by both L and Kira, as well as a Second Kira (who is completely subservient to Light's will) and Third Kira (who is a decoy being used by Light to throw suspicion off of himself), L eventually senses his future death coming soon and sets up his two greatest students to succeed him and capture Kira and solve his final case.

L is killed due to Light's manipulations and Light becomes a decoy L in order to prevent worldwide panic. Light uses Misa Amane, the Second Kira who is also his incredibly submissive girlfriend, to act as Kira and punish criminals for him. She does so gleefully, feeling that her only purpose in life is to serve Light's will. Eventually, after turning the Kira Investigation into a cold case, Light is contacted by L's successor, Near, going by the alias N. However, he also has to deal with a wildcard in the form of L's other successor Mello, who is ultimately responsible for setting up the situation that leads to his death. Light makes Misa give up being the Second Kira, erasing a good portion of her memories as well, and has her send her own Death Note to the Fourth Kira who is virtually identical to Light in ideology and intellect with the only two major differences being his obsessive scheduling tendencies and his absolute worship of Kira whom he sees as God. He also uses an old girlfriend to help divert suspicion off of the Fourth Kira, before having her killed so that she wouldn't accidentally reveal his identity as the Original Kira. However, the Fourth Kira was too much like Light and ended up acting in the exact manner that Light would in his situation so that he could best serve his God, accidentally ruining Light's plan that would have killed the rest of his enemies, leaving him free to rule his perfect world without crime without competent opposition.

This ends up with Light revealing that he is the First Kira to all of his living enemies, culminating in him getting shot by the one man that he thought would sympathize with his ideology after he insulted his father who had died during the Kira Investigation, and Light begging Mikami (Fourth Kira), Misa (Second Kira), and Takada (Decoy Fourth Kira) to help him as he sobs. The faces of the three people that could be considered closest to him flash through his mind and he cries out in agony due to his wounds and realizes that he had grown attached to the three of them, even though he thought he had been just using them for his own ends, somehow he ended up caring about them on some level. He quickly runs away from his enemies and holds his injuries as he tries to stem the bleeding. He sees images of himself before he began using the Death Note and starts to have tears run down his face as he realizes just how much he changed from the innocent and perfect child he used to be, to the arrogant and cruel God he desired to become. He eventually collapses on a staircase, lying up looking at the sky. The last thing he sees before his heart stops beating, is a phantom-like L, who he realized that he eventually grew attached to as well, considering L his only equal in the world. And possibly, his friend. In the end, all of his efforts to create a new and perfect world only end up with everyone he ever cared about dead or severely traumatized, usually by his hand or actions, and the world going back to its old ways once he was gone. Thus the philosophy of the God can be called "Perfection at all costs." Light desired the creation of a perfect world, free of crime. A world that he could rule over, as the God of Judgment, Kira, and a world that would be free of the rotten corruption that he witnessed every day when he was a child that saw his own father fight against as a police officer. All Light ever wanted was to live up to the ideals of justice that his father had instilled into him on a scale that would change the world.

The similarities between both Lelouch and Light are great, but there are very big differences between them as well. Lelouch was driven by a desire to create a better world for Nunnally, and eventually for all the people in the world, no matter what. Light desired the creation of a new world to eliminate the corruption that plagued the rotten world that he lived in. The other main difference often described between people who argue about who is the better character is that Light at least contemplated murdering Sayu, his full-blooded sister, whereas Lelouch never once considered killing Nunnally, his own full-blooded sister, for his goal. People take that to mean that Light was more dedicated to his goal than Lelouch, which is simply not true. Ruthlessness isn't the sole thing that defines how dedicated one is to their goal; it is just one of the many factors that can be measured when considering dedication to a cause. The two of them were at the very least equally dedicated to their goals of world peace, even if their means were utterly barbaric by ordinary human standards. Deliberately becoming the most evil person in history so that your name basically becomes synonymous with the Devil and simultaneously arranging your own assassination at the hands of your best friend wielding the heroic alter ego you created and using a Death Note that is owned by Shinigami, a God of Death, to attempt to create world peace are both completely insane and barbaric ideas, but for as long as Light was alive and as long as Lelouch didn't end up backing out of his own death, both of their worlds would obtain peace. And at least one of them did. That was a big difference between the two of them, for his plan to work, Lelouch needed to die and for his own plan to work, Light needed to live. Another difference between them are there chosen epithets, Demon for Lelouch, and God for Light. In the case of Lelouch, he never really hid his nature as Zero, and even played it up as the Demon Emperor, which allowed him to accept himself and the traditionally evil label that was given to him. Whereas in Light's case, his absolute need for perfection as well as his penchant for domination, ended up making him want to be a God, an absolutely perfect being. As a result, Light subconsciously rejected anything that labeled him evil, he just couldn't accept being evil while at the same time demanding absolute perfection of himself.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: I hope that I analyzed and described these two incredibly complicated characters well enough for my readers to see that while Light and Lelouch are extremely similar, they are also very different as well. However, in the end, I feel that the two of them both died the same way. Both of them died simple humans, trying to save the world the best that they could with what they had. No matter the personal cost. And that fact alone is worthy of respect to their characters.<strong>

**Draconias– Over and Out.**


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